Why Footsteps?

The name for this blog says it all. It’s all about rambling, walking, hiking, trekking… Call it what you will. I’ve always been a big fan of slow travel as a way of truly exploring this amazing world of ours. From long-distance treks lasting several weeks to walks in the woods of just a few…

Newfoundland – Part One – St Johns

In summer 2022, an old dream came true with a trip to Newfoundland. I had first begun to take an interest in the Canadian province when I bought a CD by the Chieftains called “Fire in the Kitchen” and discovered the music of Great Big Sea, a Newfoundland band that did “rock” versions of traditional…

The Ostweg – days ten and eleven

Breakfast at the hotel in Epfenhofen began at 8 and the room was already packed when I arrived just after. It was nothing special as a breakfast but it set me up for the day. I had planned out a route on Komoot to take me back to the Ostweg and, after settling up and…

The Ostweg – Days seven to nine (with day eight off)

Another long day – 29 km in the guidebook, 32 according to my Garmin – marred by an unfortunate incident. The breakfast at the Villa Junghans was worthy of the rest of the stay and I set off at around 8:45 AM, heading back down to the town through the beautiful park. As it was…

The Ostweg – Days Four to Six

What should have been an easy morning hike of just over 13 km into Freudenstadt, estimated at 13 km, turned into a 21-km slog for a number of reasons, notably a huge amount of logging work at the start of the day that obliged me to make a long detour. I set off from the…

The Ostweg – Days One to Three

On May 19th, 2022, after completing my annual marathon of work for the Cannes Film Festival that had opened a few days earlier, I took a train from Paris to Pforzheim via Karlsruhe to hike the Ostweg, the third north-south Black Forest trail, after the Westweg in September 2019 and the Mittelweg in September 2020.…

A day in Trier and my final thoughts on the Eifelsteig

October 3rd is not the best day for visiting a German city. It’s a national holiday to celebrate German reunification and, apart from a handful of restaurants and cafés, everything in Trier was closed. Even so, there were a lot of visitors in the city, as I discovered on going for breakfast after a rough…

Eifelsteig – Day 15 – Zemmer to Trier

For the first time on this trip, I found myself unable to write up this blog last night. The reason will become apparent as I go along. I knew this would be another long one. The guidebook said it would be around 30 kilometres, but as I have ended up systematically doing a longer distance…

Eifelsteig – Day 14 – Wittlich to Bruch, then on to Zemmer

After an excellent night’s sleep (not surprising given the previous day’s efforts), I set off from Wittlich at around 8:45 to return to Bruch to pick up the Eifelsteig again. The charming lady running the hotel was delighted that I had enjoyed her restaurant recommendation and told me that I’d be eating well again that…

The Eifelsteig – Day 13 – Himmerod to Bruch, then on to Wittlich

This post maybe a little shorter than the others because I am writing it after a very long day of just over 32 km. It all went well, with mostly easy walking, but I’m feeling a little tired this evening. I set off from Himmerod at around 8:30 after discovering at breakfast that I was…

The Eifelsteig – Day 12 – Manderscheid to Himmerod

On the paper, or rather in the guidebook, this looked like one of the shorter days of the whole trail, with a distance of just 18 km to cover. However, the guidebook had been systematically underestimating distances from the very beginning, and, as usual, there were an extra three or 4 km on my Garmin…